


Good Year

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Fireworks, Fluff, Holidays, Humanstuck, M/M, New Years, New Years kiss, davekat - Freeform, karkat being negative af, karkats pov, kinda sadstuck but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 20:44:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5600227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat is grumpy cause it's New Years, and Dave just wants to cheer him up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Year

You were stuck here, regardless of how simple it would be to leave. There was just something pinning your feet to the ground. Maybe you wanted someone to notice that something was wrong, so you stayed with a vain hope that flared up each time someone came near you. Maybe you were just afraid of the same thing happening if you did leave, or perhaps you would feel guilty. You were invited here, after all, and you had agreed to come. Part of that deal was not leaving just because you were feeling sort of crabby.

Yes, you were, unfortunately, not planning on exiting this disgusting, bright rumpus any time soon.

You were at Roxy’s party, with fifteen or sixteen people you were familiar with, in addition to four or five you were not. You could hear fireworks going off outside (and whether or not it was from the small group of other partygoers - Terezi, Gamzee, Rose, and Feferi - who had gone outside to shoot some off, you couldn’t tell. It could just as well be the neighbors), which wasn’t too pleasant to you. In fact, most of this ordeal was unsettling to you. There were flashy lights that gave you a headache, karaoke being sang by the familiar (possibly intoxicated) voices of your friends, and a lot of chatter. John had tried to convince you to go sing a song with him, and you had persistently declined.

You had been here for a good four hours, and it was about eleven-thirty at night now. You didn’t give a shit about New Year’s. All it was was the signal of another frustrating, miserable, cringeworthy year of your pathetic existence on Earth, as well as a nagging opportunity to look back on the one you just somehow dragged yourself through. Go Karkat.

This was most of the reason you were feeling pretty irritable about the whole thing. Everyone else seemed so happy and festive, and here you were, leaning against the counter and watching disdainfully as Nepeta and Equius attempted a duet of Hot and Cold by Katy Perry, which was absolutely depressing, seems how you thought that song had been left in 2008 where it belonged. You sipped absently from a paper cup filled with fruit punch that God knows Roxy probably spiked. You’re positive that normal fruit punch doesn’t taste like this. You don’t care, though. Does it really matter? As long as you don’t end up falling face down on the floor smashed, you’re fine.

You’re considering going out front for some air, but it takes you a good ten minutes of procrastinating on moving to actually follow through with it. Once you’re outside, you feel a lot better. Roxy lives in the suburbs, so you don’t get the best possible view of the stars, but it could be worse. It’s almost uncomfortably cold out here, which is to be expected since it’s the end of December, but you don’t mind the cold too much. 

You end up sitting down on the edge of the concrete porch a little too fast, but you settle into it after a few seconds. You gaze up at the sky blankly. Just when you locate the Little Dipper, a firework goes off from somewhere you can’t see and scares the shit out of you, making you jump. You curse it under your breath (which you can see) and go back to your stargazing. The air is less thick out here, and it’s really relieving.

Sadly, it doesn’t stay that way for long. The air is as tense as ever when you hear the door open and close, followed by a voice from behind.

“Hey.”

You look up just as he sits down, then promptly shift your gaze elsewhere, because he doesn’t deserve your attention. You don’t know why, but he doesn’t. You’re not in the mood for him right now. He can only make this worse.

“Yes?” It comes out a little more impatient than you mean for it to, but you figure he’s probably used to that by now. You still don’t look at him.

“Why are you out here? Surely you can’t be bitchy on this day, of all days,” Dave says, as if that’s his explanation. You don’t have to see his face to detect the sarcasm in the last statement.

“Actually, I very well can. I mean, what’s the point in New Year’s parties?” At this point, you have to close your mouth. Dave is your good friend, but you can’t just projectile vomit your feelings straight into his ears, especially uninvited. You almost did.

You have to close your eyes not to look at him. You don’t even know why you don’t feel like giving him the time right now. You would tell him to go away, but a part of you wants him to make you angry, just so you don’t have that pit of irritation sloshing around right beneath your skin, just waiting to escape.

“To have fun,” he replies, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Reflect on your year, celebrate the new one. I dunno.”

You can’t stand not looking at him anymore, so you do. He’s not wearing his shades, which takes you by surprise, and he apparently notices.

“Oh, Terezi stole them,” he explains dismissively. “I think Gamzee’s wearing them now.”

You nod your head in acknowledgement, then flatten the grass below with your foot. The thought of Gamzee wearing Dave’s shades is nothing if not ridiculous, and you kind of hope you see it before Dave manages to snatch them back.

“So, what about your year?” he asks after a few seconds of silence. “How’d it go?”

You shrug, and don’t speak. There’s too much stirring inside of you, and you’re afraid it will pour out the moment you open your wretched mouth. Through your eyes? Through your voice? Who knows?

Dave sighs. “Y’know, this conversation is feeling pretty one-sided, dude. You afraid to talk to me?”

“What do you want me to say?” you blurt out, narrowing your eyes. “My year was fan-fucking-tastic. Do you need to know the juicy details? You should already know them, actually, because you were there for most of it. Or are you just that ignorant and self-centered?” The amount of bite in your tone surprises even you.

Dave is wearing the closest thing to a frown you’ve seen him wear in awhile.

“Chill out, goddamn. What’s wrong?” He wraps an unwelcome arm around your shoulder, but you don’t have the energy to fight it.

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Karkat.”

“What?”

“What’s wrong?”

“I said nothing.”

“What’s wr-”

“Are you deaf?”

“Tell me.”

“Fuck you.”

There’s a silence following, which you assume is because you sounded so defeated that you may as well have just straight up agreed to talk.

You take a deep breath. “I don’t like New Year’s because I have no hope for the future, and the past has always been so shitty that I don’t even want to think about it.” You highly consider leaving it at that, but it feels wrong to. “Everybody else seems so happy with the things they’ve accomplished in the past three hundred sixty-five days, but I’m not. I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything important at all. I’m not proud of myself. It’s been like that every year of my life before, so I can’t even go back on a time where I did something right, and I can’t bring myself to feel like that’s going to change in the next year, either. New Year’s is bullshit to me. Why remind people like me of how worthless and pitiful our lives are while everyone else parties and has a good time because they’re actually going places? I fucking hate it.” You’re not sure when, but at some point, tears started to well up in your eyes. You refuse to let them out.

Dave doesn’t say anything for just long enough to make you regret venting to him (not that you didn’t already regret it anyway).

“Shit, why didn’t you say something? You didn’t have to keep that locked up. Just let it out, dude. It’s gonna eat you alive if you don’t.”

God, he’s so fucking useless. Comfortably daft.

You stare him down incredulously and just hope he gets the idea. “I can and will list about ten reasons why that is no consolation to me whatsoever. For one, I just did fucking say it, so you’re practically giving late advice. Also, it already did eat me alive, so it’s too late. And you’re shit at knowing what to say when someone pours their heart out to you. Don’t get me wrong, I already knew that, but this is on a new level that I’m amazed by, even for you, Strider-”

You were cut off by yet another firework that had to be coming from the backyard. It was too loud to be far away. You tried not to look alarmed, but it didn’t really matter, because Dave had looked away from you when it had sounded off. You hated Gamzee, Terezi, Rose, and Feferi right now, as well as whoever else might have strayed out back to join them.

You were about to start back on your rant as if it hadn’t even been interrupted, but it’s a little bit hard to talk when you have a fuckboy’s lips glued to yours all of a sudden. Of all things wrong with this night, this had to be at the top of the list.

More out of shock than anything else, you refrained from either pushing him away or getting up to leave. It felt like it lasted ten times as long as it did, but the end of it brought you no solace.

You could never have guessed, honestly. Out of all of your friends, Dave had to be the one who had the hots for you. You’ll give him some points for unpredictability and secrecy, because he must be good at acting like he couldn’t give less of a shit about you if that was any reflection of his true feelings. Now that you think of it, you wouldn’t be surprised if he just likes you “ironically.” He does everything ironically, so he can go fuck himself.

“First of all, what the fuck?” you mutter exasperatedly. If this had happened at any other point in time, you’d probably be freaking out just a smidgen, but all you could feel right now was disbelief. You didn’t even care that much.

“It’s midnight,” he responds softly. Why does he sound so disappointed? What? “Just thought maybe you wouldn’t want to be by yourself, that’s all.”

Before you can let ethics take over, you ask, “Are you drunk or something?”

He shakes his head, the usual deadpan look still plastered to his face, except his eyebrows are slightly knitted together. “I don’t drink. I’m not Rose, or Roxy.”

Sometimes you get lost in Dave’s weird jokes and dumb sense of humor and forget that he’s actually more responsible than the lot of you. You regret asking him that. It was a stupid question. He looks as normal as ever. Plus, as much as you hate to admit it, the stung tone of his voice makes you feel sort of guilty.

“Oh. Well, in that case, thank you.” You think you’ve probably already messed this up. It’s seldom that you ever see or hear Dave acting this way, and you take it as a sign that you’ve hurt his feelings. You’re pretty good at doing that, to him and everyone else.

“No problem.” How does he do that shit? He sounds so casual again, like it never happened. “I guess I’m gonna go back inside.”

He starts to stand up, but you grab the sleeve of his sweater and drag him back down. “Please don’t. Just stay out here, okay? I don’t want to be by myself.”

You thought you were done being on the edge of crying for right now, but thoughts of your own inconsideration and self loathing have brought the tears back around. Can you keep them in once again? Tune in at one to find out!

You’re an emotional mess tonight. You’ve lived through plenty of shitty celebrations, but you can’t recall ever feeling this bummed out.

Dave sits back down, a small smile on his face that you pretend not to see for the sake of his pride. “Alright. You should really make up your mind one of these days, Karcrab. You were sounding like you wanted me to go away.” Then he starts singing. “You’re hot and you’re cold, you’re yes and you’re no, you’re in and you’re out-”

“Oh my god, please stop. You can’t sing. Please.” You laugh, but it’s mostly just air.

“Ouch. Hashtag offended. I thought I sounded pretty rad.”

You scoff. “Yeah, almost as rad as Nepeta and Equius, which is sad cause they were sounding pretty horrid when I left. And as bad as it is when you rap, I’d rather hear you do that than actually sing.”

“Is that an invitation?” Smug bastard. You’d like to knee him in the gut just one time.

“No. Oh, no. That is the exact opposite of an invitation. I’m sending that idea away to fly through the infinity of space in the direction opposite to us.”

“It would be a tragedy if I made your poor ears bleed, I guess. I’ll spare you for now, but the moment I stop being able to find people who appreciate my sick ass beats, you’ll be the one to hear it.”

“Then you mean I have to hear it, like, an hour ago? Cause everyone stopped appreciating the shit you spew out of your mouth as soon as it started,” you retort.

“Was it that bad when I kissed you?”

You’re a little bit taken aback by that inquiry, and you don’t know what to say. For some idiotic reason, you had been holding onto the thread of hope that the two of you could sit here together and just skip the part about discussing that.

“I...no. I wish you would have given me some warning first, so I wouldn’t have to sit there looking like a dumbass afterwards.” You don’t tell him that you don’t think you like him that way, because you don’t even really know. You’re willing to be mature about this and mull it over some instead of shutting him down immediately. And by that, you mean you’ll think about it for an hour before you fall asleep tonight and then jump into a relationship with him tomorrow, then waste no time screwing it up the day after that. But that’s just a prediction.

Either way, you’ve come to a sound decision by the end of the night, after he kissed you goodnight right before the both of you left to go home. 

He’s a fucking idiot, and he acts like a ten year old most of the time, but he’s a good idiot. You like being around him, because he’s good at lightening any mood, and he understands you better than most other people do. You don’t think any of your other friends are quite as patient with you as he is, even at your worst times. It’s actually pretty amazing that he likes you in the first place, because you’ve given him a hundred and one reasons not to.

But, really, by the time you’re at home in your bed, with your eyes closed and your brain half asleep, your last thought is that you’re so excited to inform him in the morning that you would love for him to be your first good year.


End file.
